


Café au lait

by tzigane, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Series: Collations [6]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, M/M, Psychological Trauma, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 15:05:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3814906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzigane/pseuds/tzigane, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were probably doing their damnedest not to shuffle him into an interrogation room so that they could be sure he wasn't secretly killing co-eds between classes.</p><p>It was cheap and lazy police work of them; still, most people thought something similar, all but the best of his students, the ones who wanted to be more with their lives than boring. He didn't wait for them to leave, but he left himself, not looking back. It was as good a time as any to go grab a sandwich, and a good cup of coffee. There was a place not too far from the school that was trendy, but managed to make a damn good cup of coffee, espresso shots in not too much milk, carefully sourced beans, all the things that made him think of Hannibal laughing at him somewhere. A mild appreciation of the finer things had rubbed off. Just a little.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Café au lait

It reminded him of theatre in the round, that his classroom had the same general layout of his last classroom, that it was students sitting auditorium style around him, staring at PowerPoints as he walked them through basic forensics. It was Thursday; the following week, he had an interactive lab activity planned, and everyone was going to practice a little, because theory was nice and useless, and these students were far enough along that they needed to learn their weaknesses before they inflicted themselves on some unsuspecting law enforcement agency. He had another class after the dinner break, a three hour evening lecture on behavioral forensics, and then he had four days until he did another spate of work.

Half of the students wouldn't amount to anything, but it was worth it for those few that would.

Moving across the country had been a good call. It had gotten him away from Virginia, and that meant he was at least a little more difficult for Jack to try and rope him in for cases. He'd tried for a while -- tried working after he got out of the hospital, tried dating, tried spending some time down in Florida working on boats. Jack had dragged him back into his mess, then, too, and the results had been... Spectacularly bad wasn't quite an adequate descriptor. A complete fucking disaster probably didn't cover it, and it had nearly broken him entirely.

Molly was lucky she hadn't sealed the deal with him, so to speak, just because it had spared her some of the troublesome paperwork of disentangling their lives. Josh had kept Winston and Rudy, and the rest of his dogs had been adopted out from under him during the hospital stay; Molly was too kind hearted to have abandoned them, even if she abandoned *him* in her rush to move back to Montana. She'd had a horrible run of it, and Josh needed more stability than he'd gotten, so Will couldn't bring himself to feel angry at her.

Just at himself.

But out in Vegas, Jack was leaving him alone at last.

Maybe it was because he'd spent a couple of years drunk in Louisiana. More likely it was because Jack understood the move to Vegas was a way to keep himself (mostly) safe.

The fact that Hannibal was at large in the world was terrifying even for someone he hadn't tried to gut; never mind someone who had practically castrated the man. Vegas was glitzy and tacky and loud, and Will knew that Hannibal would avoid that at all cost.

It was his safety net; it was a weak one, Will knew, and it was probably resting wholly on a false set of pretenses, but it made it possible to sleep at night and live the bare vestiges of a life, so he clung to it with the same strength that Chilton had likely thought leaving the country would save him from being targeted. His torso had been positioned like a totem on top of a palm tree, tongue cut out; his lower half never had been located.

Will wrapped up the lecture, and reminded the class of their readings for the next week, as well as to bring their 'kits' and gloves.

At least he could feel safe in his classroom. Mostly.

It was unsurprising to him that a few figures lingered in the shadows. He'd known they were there, just as he had known that they were harmless... Well. Perhaps not harmless, but they weren't there to kill him. If he'd learned anything over the last few years, it had been the difference between people who wanted to kill him and people who didn't.

Mostly.

He waited until his students were gone, and unhooked his laptop, glancing up in their direction as he started to wind up the power cord. "And what can I do for you gentlemen? If you're here about a missing person, I have a lawyer on retainer who handles police harassment cases regularly. If you're here for a story, you can leave."

Unsurprising when the heavy set man with the high forehead stepped forwards, but the woman was terrifyingly attractive. "Mr. Graham."

Yeah. He knew what this was about.

"It's extremely lazy police work to look me up every time you have an interesting sadomasochistic murder in town." He felt his jaw clenching, as he looked down and completed packing away his things. Extremely lazy, given how many of their new CSIs he'd taught or to whom he had taught a continuing education class.

The guy shrugged his shoulders and gave a smile. "Nobody accused you of anything. I mean, how do you know we're not just here to ask you about looking at some bugs. You do that, right? Entomology?"

He smiled, a flat thing that showed too many teeth. "Because people usually send me an email with a photo attached for that. You show up en masse for the murders." He shouldered his messenger bag, hand lingering on the strap. "So, what is it this time?"

The blonde strutted forwards. "Mr. Graham, I'm Catherine Willows with the crime lab and this is Captain Jim Brass. We were hoping you might be able to help us with a case. I'm sure you've heard about the co-ed murders on campus. Janet Kent, Marcia Reese, Charlene Roth...."

He had. He had and he was trying very hard to not consider them. "Mmm. It's, I can't help you. I can't do that to myself anymore." It wasn't seeing, it was what he saw, it was what he let himself see. He saw students and trainees and people who had hope and dreams, people in stores, droning through life, and his dogs. Light, superficial.

Nothing that could crack him in half, and he was sure that if he tried looking at something now, after so long, it would. It would break him and he'd end up back in a hospital somewhere, and Will didn't want that. He was terrified of it.

Brass nodded. "Okay, I get that. I do, but it's not like we're gonna let you into the crime scenes or anything. Just, you know. You teach, and you do the profiling thing."

"Because that worked so well for me in the past?" He hefted his bag, holding tight to the strap like it would help defend him from their suggestions.

He just... he couldn't. He couldn't.

Willows stepped closer to him. "We've also got a few cases, here and there, where we could use a little help with the entomology. There are other specialists, but you're here. Kismet, right?"

No, no it wasn't. If he moved anywhere, he'd be the best easiest prey to for a local police force, and all local police forces had bizarre crimes to deal with. He looked at the detective, and then back to the woman, the lines of their mouth. "Only the files. I don't, no scenes."

None, not ever, and why was he even standing there agreeing to it? Why? "No scenes," Willows agreed, but he had a feeling about all of this, and none of it was comfortable. At all.

He rubbed fingers at the back of his neck, and shook his head a little. "I need to go home and feed my dogs. LVPD? Nightshift?"

"We start at a quarter 'til eleven, sometimes sooner. Mostly run through the night and into the morning, sometimes.. into the next night, but sleep's overrated, right, Mr. Graham?" That would get old fast.

"Will." Or professor, because he had a doctorate but he never felt right being called Dr. Graham. It felt too much like Dr. Lecter, and he'd never liked the extra titles. "I'll come by at a quarter til. I have another class after this."

The look that passed between them was quick, subtle. He didn't miss it. "Thank you, Will."

Yeah. He was sure that they were grateful. They were probably doing their damnedest not to shuffle him into an interrogation room so that they could be sure he wasn't secretly killing co-eds between classes.

It was cheap and lazy police work of them; still, most people thought something similar, all but the best of his students, the ones who wanted to be more with their lives than boring. He didn't wait for them to leave, but he left himself, not looking back. It was as good a time as any to go grab a sandwich, and a good cup of coffee. There was a place not too far from the school that was trendy, but managed to make a damn good cup of coffee, espresso shots in not too much milk, carefully sourced beans, all the things that made him think of Hannibal laughing at him somewhere. A mild appreciation of the finer things had rubbed off. Just a little.

He rested for forty-five minutes, tucked into a booth at the back, watching the other patrons and letting his mind drift, preparation for his next lecture on behavioral forensics. On collection and field procedures, from the man who was a walking example of what not to do, which he halfway savored as he walked back to campus and re-settled in his classroom.

Things ran about the way he expected. There were a few students who were bright-eyed and paying attention and there were a couple struggling to stay awake. By the end of class, Roberts had dozed off in a corner and was starting to snore, so Will tossed an eraser at him. It bounced off of his shoulder and the rest of the class laughed, so things ended on a fairly good note.

He reminded Roberts that, while he was napping on his own dime, his snoring and _gurgling noises_ irritated the rest of the class. He recommended no doze, caffeinated gum, or just a good strong cup of the cheap stuff from a convenience store before next week. Roberts took it well, and Will took his time packing again. He drove home first, let the three dogs out into the backyard to wreck havoc, and carefully doled out food into bowls.

Sometimes he found himself frantically progressing through the motions of living as if it would make him feel any less disconnected or alive, an odd frenetic energy that surged through him as he crouched down and stroked Mal's soft feathery fur while he ate. Mal had anxiety, and though it was against every sense he knew about dogs and food, it was the only way to get Mal to eat more than a mouthful before running to chew it in the corner. "Yeah, who's my big baby? Mmmhm, you are." It was all tone, low lulling pleasant talk while Mal whined and chewed and finished eating his chicken breast and veg.

Will was no less nervous than Mal when he parked in the LVPD lab parking lot, turned the car off and sat for a moment, rubbing damp hands on his thighs before he pulled his cell phone out of the center console, and took his keys with him. He could do this. He could go into that building and do what they asked of him. They probably just wanted to feel him out and shake him down about the killings and thought that the best way to do it was to suck him in on the pretense of doing something useful.

The office seemed pretty different than the ones at Quantico; less dark and gritty and more... well. Blue.

Fluorescent light had a lot to answer for there.

He wandered up to their front desk, hands tucked into his pockets. "Hi. I'm Will Graham -- Detective Brass and CSI Willows asked me to speak to them."

Blue eyes blinked at him through thick-lensed glasses. "I'll let them know. Have a seat, Mr. Graham."

Yeah, okay. He could do that, and people watching would keep him occupied. There was a fair mix of people in the lobby, a couple of folks who were probably bondsmen from the look of them. A girl with three kids sat in one corner, bad teeth, crappy complexion, and he wanted to reach out and tug the kids away, send them to a home with somebody who wasn't doing meth in her spare time.

It wasn't his job, hadn't been in a long time. He watched, watched and tried not to feel too tired, despite that he was. He could sleep until noon the next day, if he wanted to. He could every day, but most of the time he was up early and caught an afternoon nap before heading off to teach class. The dogs didn't mind curling up with him, Mal at the foot of the bed, Andora curled at the small of his back, and Winny... Well, mostly, Winny just got too hot and flopped out on the side of the bed Will didn't sleep on and snored like it was going out of style.

Winny was a gorgeous, healthy big dog, and dumb, and had healed up great after the hit and run, even if she thought she was a human. He just... Needed to stay awake long enough to deal with the crime lab people and then go home. Hopefully, Andora wouldn't have tried to eat anything she shouldn't have by then, but it was kind of unlikely. He was getting accustomed to vet visits because she'd swallowed rocks or something stupid.

"Mr. Graham?" 

Will stood up, a smooth motion as he turned to glance generally at Detective Brass. "Hello. Where do we start?"

"Why don't you come back to my office with me? It, it's a closet, pretty much, but." Brass shrugged. "It's quiet and out of the way."

He inclined his head, mostly a nod, and took a step forward, knowing the man would take a step backward and they would leave. It surprised him a little when he nodded at the woman behind the desk and she blinked again, pushing papers in his direction. "Sign off on these and I'll get you a visitor's pass."

Huh.

A glance proved it to be pretty standard blah blah blah, permission to run a criminal history, and he scrawled his signature at the bottom, there and there and there, and handed it back to her.

"You can run that while I take him in the back, right?" Brass asked, and she nodded. "C'mon, Graham."

His criminal history would come back boringly clean, and he was tired just thinking about it. Will fell into step behind Brass, attempting not to imagine Jack racing through the halls ahead of him. On his way to a solution, dragging Will along with him.

"So, uh... it's been a long time since we had a bug guy around. You guys are few and far between." Brass slowed down and got into step with him. "So, Catherine's pretty suspicious about you. Don't take it personally if she gets up in your face sometime."

"Because object rape is certainly on my bucket list," Will deadpanned, keeping to that pace. He looked down the hallway, scanned, took it all in. He could see the people moving in the space, the patterns they took, the wear marks on the floor and the wall bumpers.

"Yeah, that's pretty much what I said about it," Brass hummed. "Among other things. You've got, uh, interesting history. If somebody were eating the co-eds, you know, maybe then I'd be eyeing you with some concern, but..."

He was tired of always having to say, over and over again, that he wasn't a murderer. That he'd given up everything, four, five times over, to try to save lives. It didn't matter. None of it mattered, and that was why he'd stopped because he was always the easiest target to go after despite. Everything. "I've never found those jokes funny."

That gained him a nod. "Yeah, I can see where you would. Honestly. So, we've got this case. Sixteen year old kid, stabbed to death. We've got a witness, we've got hair, fibers, DNA, the works. Problem is that the defense managed to scrounge up an entomologist to testify that he couldn't have done it because of the bugs."

"And you say 'scrounge up' because you don't believe him." Will stopped when the man stopped, outside of an office door.

"We have a witness. We have fibers, we've got hair, we've got... No. I don't believe him. I think he's a lying son of a bitch and they've paid him an assload of money to get what they want," Brass announced, pushing open the door. "Forgive the mess."

He shrugged his shoulders, and stepped in after him, closed his eyes for a moment. "So you want someone who's going to give you an honest answer, cheaply." Will almost managed a smile, he hoped. Usually people thought he was going to have some kind of seizure when he really made the effort. 

"Eh, well." Broad shoulders shrugged. "Budget concerns. You know how it is."

"I do. Thankfully, I'm tenured, so it won't be a problem. I'll need to see the files, and I suspect you'll want this done in your lab?"

Brass walked around the desk and settled into the chair, leaning back in it. "Probably for the best, don't you think? We've got the facilities, we can provide you with the supplies..."

Will remained standing for the moment, letting his eyes drift. He'd worked there for some time, enough for the office to accumulate a sort of cluttered warmth. He probably spent more time there than he did at home. He also probably had a drinking problem, one he thought he had under control. "That's fine."

"So, how about I show you around? We can talk about consultation fees and..." The rap at the door was barely audible, but Brass heard it and looked up anyway. "Sanders, what are you doing out of your glass cage?"

The guy in the door gave a smile that was nice to see, a bright kind of triangular grin. "They let me out on occasion so I can have more coffee. How else do I keep working so fast for you?"

Will shifted, stepped back to give them room to talk, to move himself out of the conversation. "I'll wait outside if you need to talk..."

"Oh, no, no," Sanders offered. "Just... I have the results back on the zip tie. Catherine's still out in the field and I thought somebody should know." That was a lot of excitement. "Hi, new guy. Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt, just..."

Captain Brass was already standing. "It's good, Greg. It's okay. Be there in a minute."

Will shifted, moved backwards a step against the wall. He wanted to let Brass move out, take the lead, and the organizing of movement in small groups of people just... bizarre and maddening and Will hated navigating it. He sucked with people and life would be a hall of a lot better if he could just never have to deal with any of them again.

Sanders -- Greg -- tilted his head towards Will when he did. "So, you coming with?" Friendly, and easy. It reminded him a lot of Bev, actually, just there and not doing anything except kind of being on offer.

"I suppose so." He stepped out, took the room he was given, and shifted his shoulders once he was out in the hallway. Every day was a struggle in so many ways. "Greg, I'm Will. I teach at WLVU."

"Nice to meet you." There was no hand offered, just a tilt of the head, and that... that was unusual. Most people immediately offered their hand when introducing themselves. "He clear to talk in front of, boss?" Dark eyes glanced towards Brass hopefully.

"I'll just..." Remove himself from the equation, it was easier, now that they were out in the hallway. He kept his eyes down. moving. Greg's hair was interesting.

"C'mon, you can at least follow along the way. See my completely awesome DNA lab, yeah?"

Brass snorted. "Never mind me over here. Just consider me a wallflower."

"Lab folks don't have new people to show off to often enough," Will offered, managing a smile as he took a step forward, looking sideways at Brass.

Broad shoulders shrugged. "You looked like a guy who would enjoy seeing me show off."

"Okay, enough with the flirting. Never mind Sanders here. I'm pretty sure he'd flirt with the wall if we left him alone long enough."

"That makes it something less of a compliment." Will felt a little better about the banter, about the interact, and gestured with a nod for one of them to lead the way. "I still consult with the Bureau, occasionally and against my better judgement, and they have the standard poor fee scale structure. I'm interested more in what you think the defense team's man did in his experiment."

Sanders slipped ahead of them. "I can't tell you anything about that one, but what I can do? Is show you what I found in the zip tie."

He cocked an eyebrow at Brass, because it was one of those things -- was the zip tie evidence? In the case he was being brought in or another one? Once upon a time, all cases he could reach out and touch were his, either by dint of assignment or adoption.

"As you know, I've been testing everything against Debbie Reston, because it would make sense if it all came back to her, right?" Yeah. Right. "That's more or less what we were expecting, and while I was hoping for foreign epithelials, what I got was something way more interesting."

Greg Sanders talked with his entire body -- mouth, yes, but eyes and hands and the motion of his body. It was... interesting.

He'd only let himself skim the cases, changed radio stations when it came on, just enough to answer any questions students came up with. Course relevant, and he looked forward to the murderers stopping just so he didn't have to track it for class. 

Watching Greg's motions was a lot more interesting than thinking too hard about what he was saying. Not his case. Not his case, not his case.

"Which is what, Sanders?"

Those eyebrows were expressive. Why was he even noticing this? It was one of those things he tried hard not to do. "I found an errant hair, DNA tag still attached. It didn't match Debbie Reston. I cross-checked it with everything from the old cases." He paused. "It actually belongs to Janet Kent."

"The first victim?" Not a copycat, and he folded his arms around himself, crossed arms, because nothing said cold chill up his spine like copycat.

Brass whistled, low. "Yeah, that's... I'll call Catherine for you." He glanced at Will. "If you wouldn't mind giving me a minute."

"No, not at all. I'm all jacked up on bad coffee, I'm not going anywhere." He gave half a gesture of surrender. He could feel himself swaying if he thought about it long, but he'd get his second wind in another hour. A third wind a few hours after that.

Once Brace had stepped away, Greg leaned in a little towards him. "Not to be any more flirty than you'd expect, or, you know, drug-dealery, because I'm totally not, but... If you'd be interested, I have really good coffee."

"I would appreciate really good coffee at this point. I've turned into an old man somewhere along the line, because I'm usually in bed by now." Sleep in, run whenever he rolled out of bed, laze until time to get ready for class. Will was mostly sure he was still catching up on years of sleep debt.

"Follow me!" Yeah, Follow him, and Will couldn't remember when he had last had any kind of interest in so much as watching another human being the way he was watching Greg. "I usually keep it hidden, but you look like a guy who would appreciate me bringing it out."

"And since I don't work here, I can't sneak it out when you're not looking." He unfolded his arms, and moved to follow. Glass labs, it was a good idea, lots of eyes watching. Back home had been like that, too, all space and eyes and everyone working.

It made his hair stand on end a little, but here was less like Virginia. The people here were all busy working, not watching one another. Not watching _him_ and expecting him to fall apart or do something shocking. He had no idea what, exactly, but something. This felt weirdly comfortable, with all of them treating walls like they were walls and not windows. "Exactly. And you can't snitch on where I hide it, either."

"No one to tell, either." He lifted his eyebrows, and halfway made eye contact. Warm, warm brown eyes, they fit his face, Will decided as he followed the other man down the hall. "So, do you do just DNA, or other labs?"

"Jack of all trades," Greg answered, "but master of DNA." And clearly quite modest as well. "I'd like to do fieldwork, though. Eventually. I mean, the money in DNA is great, but..."

"But you want to be hands on and feel like you're contributing?" It was a guess, a dart thrown at a wall., but it was a story as old as investigation, from what Will could tell.

They slipped into the break room as Greg answered, glancing around him subtly to check if anyone could catch sight of him getting coffee out of whatever hiding place he had. "I dunno, it just... feels different, you know? I like to learn things, and like I said. Master of DNA. I'd like to master something new, I guess."

He made a thoughtful noise, lingering for a moment before he pulled out a chair at their small table to perch on the edge and watch Greg shiftily scoop coffee into the machine's basket. "My old lab team were the happiest, most excited about their work people I knew. I can't particularly discourage you."

"But something tells me you'd like to. Just a little," Sanders hurried to explain. "It's okay. You don't have any motives for it, so you must have reasons." He snuck coffee out of a lower cabinet, near the very back corner, and began   to make coffee.

"I'm extremely jaded about police work. Field work." He smiled when he said it, leaning his elbows on his knees as he watched Greg move. "So of course, I teach forensics at WLVU." And he watched a lot of hope die, as people got jaded, less excited, as they had bad run ins and lost their enjoyment of helping people.

"So tell me about it. The teaching, I mean, and when the coffee's done I'll show you my lab if Brass isn't back yet." Yeah. Greg Sanders was a flirt, and it was weird. Mostly it was weird because Will couldn't remember the last time he had noticed someone flirting with him, much less the last time he'd thought he might be interested.

"Mmm. I have five courses I teach, one just in the spring. Introduction to criminology, basic forensics, advanced forensics, behavioral forensics, and a research course." Since it was fall, it was his lighter course load, though seasons in Vegas seemed to mean nothing more than varying degrees of death heat. It was better than the wet heat of the East coast; just more dangerous because he never noticed he was overheating until it was almost too late.

Greg was digging cups out of one of the upper cabinets, scrounging up packets from a nearby container. "Sugar and cream?" Raised eyebrows punctuated the question. "Those sound like fun. Maybe I should sign up for one of them.

"Tuesdays and Thursdays, if you're really interested in crossing over." He rubbed fingers over his forehead, and closed his eyes. "Just sugar, please."

Will could hear Greg moving, could hear him slide the pot out from under the spout with it still making. He'd been that desperate for caffeine before, and the sizzle of coffee against the heating plate made him smile despite himself.

"Here."

He opened his eyes, and gratefully accepted the cup. "Thanks. How long have you been in Vegas?"

"A couple of years. I was in New York for a while finishing my masters, but it was a little far from home for me," Greg admitted. "You?"

"Coming up on three years now. I feel like I'm still adjusting to the desert. What's home for you?" Reflect and turn, reflect and turn, Christ, Hannibal had taught him well.

"San Gabriel, California." Greg leaned against the counter with one hip, holding the mug with both hands. "My grandparents were actually from Norway, which is kind of a long story, and they lived in Minnesota for a long time, but my folks preferred California, so there you go."

"Mmm, snow or the ocean and temperate weather. Let me see..." He feigned weighing a decision, and took a sip of the coffee. Let it filter through his mouth, linger in his senses.

That was a nice laugh. "Yeah. My poppa used to say, 'Alle liker ikkje eitt; somme liker kaldt og somme heitt'."

"Occasionally I run into enough cognates between languages that I can almost make sense of something. I heard cold and hot, but." He took another sip of coffee, tasted it slowly. It was nice, really. Really nice.

Maybe he was glad he'd agreed to come out of his shell this far; it was unexpected, but... kind of nice. He didn't make friends easily or well, and after the year and a half or so he'd spent drunk most of the old ones didn't know what to do with him exactly. "More or less it means everybody doesn't like the same thing. Some like it cold and some like it hot. My Norwegian is terrible."

"It sounded a little more like dutch," Will admitted, "But I have a bad ear for languages." He refused to categorize cajun as a foreign language, though it left his french completely un-usable out of the country.

"Three years of Spanish and all I can remember is the word for...."

"Hey, Greggo!" Will twitched slightly, turning to look at the man in the door. Seriously, were all of the people here that ridiculously attractive? "You got my results from that armed robbery case?"

"Thanks for the coffee, and I suppose I'll see you around." He lifted the cup in a toast to Greg, his mouth tugging up a little. He hoped he'd run into him again.

Flirty lift and drop of lashes. "If I see any interesting bugs, I know who to call."

Good looking guy in the doorway smirked. "Sara's looking for you, too."

"See you around," Greg offered, lingering slowly on his way to the door.

Will leaned back in his chair, and nodded acknowledgment at the man as he drank the very good cup of coffee Greg had brewed. Not too bitter, not burnt at all. It was a nice way to kill time while he waited.

For a bad day, this one was actually ending pretty well.


End file.
